undeserving way._ The tears of May are rain-drops;
young, because the year is not far advanced. 'That undeserving way'
seems a very poor expression. See (p. 64) the passage from Bion: 'A tear
the Paphian sheds for each blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on
the earth are turned to flowers.'

+Stanza 25,+ 1. 3. _Death ... blushed to annihilation._ This very daring
hyperbole will hardly bear--nor does it want--manipulation into prose.
Briefly, the nature of Death is to be pallid: therefore Death, in
blushing, abnegates his very nature, and almost ceases to be Death.

11. 3, 4. _The breath Revisited those lips_, &c. As Death tended towards
'annihilation,' so Adonais tended towards revival.

1. 7. _'Silent lightning.'_ This means, I suppose, lightning
unaccompanied by thunder--summer lightning.

+Stanza 26,+ 1. 1. _'Stay yet awhile.'_ See Bion (p. 64): 'Stay, Adonis!
stay, dearest one!'

1. 2, _'Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live.'_ See as above:--

'That I may kiss thee now for the last time--
But for as long as one short kiss may live!'

1. 3. _'My heartless breast.'_ Urania's breast will henceforth be
heartless, in the sense that, having bestowed her whole heart upon
Adonais, she will have none to bestow upon any one else: so I understand
the epithet.

1. 4. _'That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,'_ &c. See
Bion (p. 64): 'This kiss will I treasure,' &c.

11. 7-9. _'I would give All that I am, to be as thou now art:--But I am
chained to Time, and cannot thence depart.'_ Founded on Bion (p. 64):
'While wretched I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee.'
The alteration of phrase is somewhat remarkable. In Bion's Elegy the
Cyprian Aphrodite is 'a goddess,' and therefore immortal. In Shelley's
Elegy the Uranian Aphrodite does not speak of herself under any
designation of immortality or eternity, but as 'chained to _Time_,' and
incapable of departing from Time. As long as Time lives and operates,
Urania must do the same. The dead have escaped from the dominion of
Time: this Urania, cannot do. There is a somewhat similar train of
thought in _Prometheus Unbound_,--where Prometheus the Titan, after
enduring the torture of the Furies (Act 1), says--

'Peace is in the grave:
The grave holds all things beautiful and good,
I am a God, and cannot find it _there_.'

+Stanza 27,+ 11. 1-4. _'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, Why
didst thou leave,'_ &c. Th